How You Will Benefit From People in Their 60s Doing What They Did in the 60s?

Again they are reimagining what it is to be of an age.

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People keep congratulating me on “retiring”.

Arrrrrrrrgh!

I am NOT retiring. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

It’s not retiring when you pivot, transition, and transform yourself and your professional pursuits into something new, challenging, meaningful, and hopefully profitable.

I understand why they say it.

I am of retirement age. By severing ties with corporate clients as a marketing and communications content creator, there’s a natural assumption I am retiring in the classical sense.

Each time I hear this, I want to shout out that I AM NOT RETIRING.

Of course, I don’t shout. I graciously say thank you and then I still struggle to figure out a nice way to say there is no #&$%@ way I am retiring (unless it’s in the context of an athlete “retiring” from their professional sport to move on to other endeavors).

If I were 40, they wouldn’t be assuming I am retiring. Instead, they would be asking what I was moving on to.

I do appreciate their thoughtful and caring sentiment.

I also understand that the presumption, assumption and stereotype of age default them to assume I am retiring.

In my case and in the case of millions of other “older” people around the world, we are instead pivoting to something new, engaging, active and purposeful.

Just like back in the 1960s, we are redefining what it means to be of a certain age range. More on that in a moment.

Let’s get with the new reality

I am starting Paul Long v.4 (V.1 kid, V.2 newsman, V.3 content creator, V.4 founder of New Way Forward ).

Years ago, I started wondering:

A)??? What is truly right for me?

B)??? What would be the way to live, be relevant, be creative, be fulfilled, and earn an income that is most aligned with who I am and what I want and need?

I started thinking, researching and soul-searching.

I immediately realized traditional retirement had no chance with me. It would be a disaster.

I need to aspire, create, be challenged, accomplish and be relevant while earning enough to afford an extended health and life span.

I discovered there is a tragic trend of people retiring and after a couple of years being in serious trouble due to a loss of relevance, purpose and identity.

Depression. Alcoholism. Drug abuse. Divorce.

I also discovered the growing megatrend of “older” people forgoing “retirement” to, out of desire or necessity, reinvent an entirely new reality of olderhood.

With decades of healthy and active life realistically available to most of us, it is a phase of life that has never existed before.

Heck, The Stanford University Center on Longevity created, with the involvement of experts from many different sectors, a New Life Map .

With this new trend and truth, with the ways of the world, and technologies that can enable us, it all begs the question, “What am I going to do with this new gift of life?”

It’s a whole new ball game. I am going to play in it full tilt.

The question is, what are YOU going to do with it?

It’s rewire, refire, reimagine and reinvent

Before I go any further, I want it to be clear that I honor anyone for whom traditional retirement is ideal. I know some of them, and I say, “Congratulations. Godspeed. You’ve earned it.”

We’re all different and we all have different needs. Financial needs are the biggest drivers of people rewiring instead of retiring (and being glad they did).

Yet there are also more and more people reimaging and reinventing themselves and their lives because they are aware of the new Life Map and the opportunities that exist.

Now what?

Now what? Now what? Now what? Now what? Now what?

Whenever I speak with someone who is going through a big “later life” change, such as the kids leaving home or our careers coming to an end, whether we like it (I’m done with this!) or not (you’re fired!) or any number of other life-changing moments I ask:

“What’s the number one thing you keep asking yourself?”

I always get the same response: “I keep wondering Now what?”

It’s the number one question you must answer. A question you must answer in deeper and more open-minded ways than ever before.

That’s because you very likely have reached a point in life when it is now YOUR TURN.

The gift is wrapped and sitting under the tree. It’s time to open it. But first, what do you want to have inside the box?

It’s your turn

You can go beyond the obvious, default and conventional answers to reconsider and reimagine a way forward that fits you, your needs and your desires.

You realize you are closer to the end than the beginning (motivation), but you can still have decades of healthy, fulfilling and active life ahead (opportunity).

You now know more about yourself, life and the world in order to do so.

You have never had a better point in your life in order to do so.

Everything has aligned to enable this and people over 40, 50 and above are redefining life in amazing ways.

Just like people in their 20s and 30s did in the 1960s.

It’s the 60s all over again

When people think of what happened in society in the 1960s it’s typically human rights and peace movements, sex, drugs and rock & roll.

Yet those were just the manifestations of something much deeper as I learned when I produced? the Emmy award-winning documentary, A Passing of the Torch and interviewed many of those game changers.

What enabled those social and life changes were economic, technological and societal changes that had never existed before.

Youth all across the globe realized they did not have to accept what was on offer and what society and parents expected of them.

They viewed this time of life as my turn.

The social movements of civil, women’s, gay & lesbian rights (among others) and the ecology movement came from the desire to be relevant, signify and shape the world into what they considered to be a better place.

Sex, drugs and rock & roll were their efforts to define their own identities and lifestyles and flip the finger at conventions.

They started movements and trends that continue to this day.

They broke down the walls and killed off the gatekeepers of business and society opening the door for young people to make a difference, have an impact and be successful.

(Think about it. In the 60s the closest thing to a twentysomething entrepreneur would be a pot dealer. Now, thanks to boomers like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Richard Branson, et. al., it’s the twentysomething entrepreneur that is venerated).

It’s OUR turn

So, we are doing it again. We are redefining and reshaping the expectations of what it is to be a certain age.

We are being rebellious, signifying and paving the way for ourselves and those that follow (that’s you GenXer, Millennial, GenZer, etc. and now is the time even at a young age to start realizing the life map has changed for the better). ?

Older people are now viewed as irrelevant. Ageism abounds based on outdated or untrue stereotypes.

Those of us who are “outliers” are redefining age because we’re eradicating those stereotypes by how we live, what we do and what we accomplish.

We are defining a new phase of life that is radical now but will be the accepted norm shortly.

So, when people want to congratulate me on “retiring” perhaps the conversation should go like this:

“Congratulations on retirement, Paul.

“Thank you, but I’m not “retiring”.

“Oh really? I don’t understand.”

“You will.”

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